Of Pets and Exiles
by Sarah1281
Summary: Aunn Aeducan knows the importance of connecting with new companions, but when her efforts to talk about pets with Anders makes him run away, she decides to bond about being exiled with the angriest member of the group...


Of Pets and Exiles

Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age.

Note: Because, seriously, why couldn't the DN have had a conversation about this?

Velanna glanced over at Anders. It had been a little over three hours since the blond mage had taken his cat out of his pack and he was still playing with it and showed no signs of stopping. Sure she could go back inside the Keep but the weather was nice and – like any true Dalish elf – she much preferred to be outdoors anyway.

"Will you put that thing away?" she snapped.

Anders turned to her, looking highly offended. "That 'thing' has a name and that's Ser Pounce-a-lot," he lectured.

"I don't care," Velanna said bluntly. "Just put it away before I light it on fire."

Anders ignored the threat, probably secure in his belief he could protect the small furry creature. "Why do you care, anyway? Haven't you ever had a pet?"

"What? Of course not!" Velanna replied indignantly.

"Well that explains that, then," Anders murmured. He turned to the third member of their little group. "How about you, oh illustrious commander?"

Aunn Aeducan thought back. "Well, there's Trian, of course, but I'm not sure if everyone would count Mabari as simple pets. This is Ferelden, after all. I did have a cat once."

"A cat and a dog, hm?" Anders asked. "Interesting. You much preferred the cat, I'm sure."

"No, wait, I lied," Aunn announced. "I had five."

Velanna knew she should stay out of the discussion but that last statement didn't make a lot of sense. Then again, the so-called 'Hero of Ferelden' often seemed to think such things as consistency and making any degree of sense were beneath her. "Didn't you live underground? Do they even have cats underground?"

Aunn rolled her eyes as if it were a ridiculous question or something. "**Clearly **they do if I had five. We did have to import them from the surface but I loved them very much until…" she trailed off dramatically.

Velanna was content to try and outwait the dwarf but Anders apparently felt differently. "Until?" he prompted.

"A new cook somehow confused them for furry nugs and cooked one of them and served it to us for dinner!" Aunn exclaimed, looking mildly traumatized.

"I am so sorry," Anders told her earnestly, reminding Velanna inexplicably of the King of Ferelden who had stopped by earlier to get briefed on the situation that rogue templar had caused by trying to kill Anders despite his Grey Warden status. Apparently the fact that the templar had not only gone against the Right of Conscription but the Crown's personal approval of Ander's conscription meant that there were all sorts of political implications to consider. "That sounds awful for you."

Aunn nodded. "It was," she confirmed. "Thank you. Of course, it was even worse for the cook after I had him boiled alive and fed to the nugs."

Anders looked horrified and even Velanna couldn't quite manage to appear unaffected.

"What?" Aunn asked defensively. "I was seven! In hindsight I know I might have overreacted, but I was very upset!"

"That almost makes it worse…" Anders said quietly.

"What?" Aunn didn't get it. "Why?"

Anders merely shook his head. "You know what? Never mind. I'm going to go over there for awhile…" With that he all but ran back into the Keep.

Aunn watched him go with no small amount of confusion. "What's with him?" she asked blankly.

"Who knows?" Velanna replied. "He's a shem."

Aunn looked unconvinced. "I guess…"

"Since we are alone, I have something I've been meaning to ask you," Velanna began hesitantly.

"Ask away," Aunn invited cheerfully.

"Do you remember when we encountered my clan?" Velanna asked.

Aunn cocked her head. "Vaguely. The man we spoke to was much politer than the Dalish I've encountered in the past. Maybe he heard how aiding me against the Blight gave the Dalish a homeland near Ostagar?"

Velanna didn't really think it mattered but didn't want to risk aggravating Aunn immediately before asking an important question. "Perhaps. Why were you so quick to defend me to him? I know I haven't given you much reason to do so."

"I consider you a friend, Velanna, and that's reason enough," Aunn said seriously. "Although you should probably know that I would have done it even had I hated you."

"Why?" Velanna honestly could not understand this.

"Because I could understand what you were going through and, by the Stone, I would have given a great deal to have someone do that for me," Aunn answered a little heatedly.

"How dare you presume to understand what it's like to be exiled from the only home you've ever known!" Velanna cried, affronted. Aunn often tried to 'understand' them but this was really pushing it.

To her surprise – though not great surprise since Aunn had a tendency to be rather shameless – the commander didn't look like she'd just been rebuked. "How dare I? Maybe because I've been there. You were exiled from your clan and I was thrown out of Orzammar after being told to go get myself killed fighting darkspawn."

Well that was a surprise. Then again, Sigrun was one of the most cheerful creatures she had ever had the misfortune of meeting so perhaps it was just a dwarf thing. Or, considering Oghren, a female dwarf thing. "You were?"

Aunn nodded, looking down. "A little less than two years ago by now. Sure, I could have simply gone to Kal-Sharok and passed myself off as a warrior and you could have joined a different clan but if you respect the authority that throws you out, it's difficult to bring yourself to _completely_ ignore your sentence. There is, of course, often room for interpretation."

"I told you my story," Velanna reminded her. "What happened to you?"

"My father was the King of Orzammar and my younger brother really wanted to succeed him," Aunn began. She stopped and smiled wryly. "That's probably an almost ridiculous understatement, actually. He tried to talk me into killing our older brother and when that didn't work he hired mercenaries to do it and framed me. He had bribed a good deal of the Assembly to cast me out without a trial and seal me into the Deep Roads to fight darkspawn until I died and so that's what happened."

"Yes, I can see that you did just that," Velanna deadpanned.

Aunn shrugged. "I tried, I really did. Here's the thing, though: I am good at fighting. As in really good. It's always been the one thing I knew I was amazing as. I'd killed a few dozen darkspawn and they'd barely touched me by the time I encountered the leader of the Ferelden Grey Wardens on his way back to the surface. He said a Blight was coming and since I wasn't having much luck getting killed on my own, I decided to fulfill my sentence by joining the Grey Wardens."

"That worked out well," Velanna noted dryly.

"I came close once, at Ostagar," Aunn claimed. "But you can't you really blame me if a centuries-old abomination turned into a dragon and rescued me and the now-King, can you? Wait, don't answer that. As for the rest of it…it wasn't like I was planning on making it through everything – well, if you don't count that thing with Morrigan – and I never shied away from an opponent and even took down several dragons. If that wasn't enough for them to kill me…well I wasn't just going to stand there and let them kill me. Besides, my sentence was commuted."

"Fratricide is a very serious charge, even if you were innocent," Velanna told her. "So how did you get your sentence commuted?"

"My little brother was grateful about me practically single-handedly securing him the throne and knew that as a Grey Warden I could feel free to just ignore the fact I was exiled and hang around all the time anyway," Aunn explained. "Besides, it's not like he hated me; he just thought I was a threat and once he was King I wasn't anymore. Well, not unless I was planning on killing him and his reinstating me made me far less inclined to do so."

"Why would you put your brother on the throne if he murdered your older brother and tried to have you killed?" Velanna honestly didn't understand. If she had done such a thing to Seranni than she would have deserved her clan's hatred.

Aunn shrugged. "It's complicated. Basically it boiled down to three things: He was a stronger ruler than his opponent, I didn't want to be Queen, and it's better for my family."

"I…see," Velanna said, clearly not seeing at all.

"It doesn't matter, really," Aunn claimed. "You could say the year that I was exiled and ended up stopping the Blight was just a very unusual year that I've mostly put behind me and I'm only doing this 'Commander of the Grey' shtick until we've gotten things to settle down here and then Anora's planning on putting her father in charge and we're going to conveniently not receive any orders from Weisshaupt that say otherwise while I head back to Orzammar."

"That doesn't sound terribly responsible," Velanna remarked.

"I ended a freaking Blight," Aunn countered. "I think that means I've done more for our cause then the First Warden has and unless they want the Crown to declare that this experiment in giving Wardens land and titles was a failure, they'll put up with it. But to get back to what I was saying earlier, while Orzammar may love me more than ever _now_ there was a month or so when I first went back to seek their aid against the Blight and ended up having to solve the succession issue since my father had recently died where people were very…cold. Many of them pretended that they didn't even know who I was because I legally did not exist anymore and the ones that didn't were very contemptuous. I only wish they had been as polite about it as your clansman has been."

"Marren was never one to be needlessly cruel," Velanna conceded. "And you said your companions said nothing?"

"Nothing at all," Aunn confirmed. "They just stood back watching it and occasionally made little pithy comments about how short and helpless we were, how awful dwarven ale is, or the conditions of Dust Town to bother. Honestly, that was unbelievably insensitive of them – especially when Leliana asked Shale all about how she felt returning to Orzammar and she's a centuries-old golem who can't remember it! I don't think that I am that ridiculously self-absorbed and unobservant so therefore it was the least I could do to tell your clan when they were wrong about you."

Velanna cocked her head curiously. "Do you really think they were wrong?"

"I'm not even going to touch on the incident that led to your exile," Aunn declared. "But when he said you didn't care about anything but your vengeance…well, would you honestly put up with all these humans everywhere if you didn't feel we were the best chance of saving your sister?"

Velanna snorted. "That's funny."

"And thus you're proving them wrong, just as I did," Aunn concluded. "So even if you never make amends with them at least it's something to know that you're not the monster they make you out to be."

"That it is," Velanna murmured before catching herself. "But I still hate shems!"

Aunn laughed. "To be fair, Velanna, Morrigan had me half-convinced that the existence of Cammen was justification for wiping out an entire tribe of your people…"

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